After losing their top prospect in a trade and graduating others, the Phillies now rank among one of the worst farm systems in the league.
The Phillies boasted one of the best farm systems in baseball just a year ago, but that is no longer the case. Thanks to a myriad of reasons, their system has now fallen to the bottom third of the league.
Baseball America released its latest organizational talent rankings Thursday. Philadelphia ranked No. 23 overall, their worst ranking in the last six seasons. They were in the top ten in each of the last three years, ranking as high as No. 6 in 2017.
BA’s Ben Badler said Philadelphia had a mid-tier farm system before trading Sixto Sanchez to the Marlins as part of the deal to acquire J.T. Realmuto. That stripped them of their best prospect and one of just three in the BA top 100. That leaves only Alec Bohm and Luis Garcia, neither of whom rank in the top 50.
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In addition, Badler noted multiple graduations to the major leagues. Of their BA 2018 preseason top ten, three went to the majors (J.P. Crawford, Scott Kingery, Jorge Alfaro) and two more were traded (Sanchez, Franklyn Kilome). Losing five of your top ten prospects in a year’s time will knock down your system a peg or two.
Philadelphia has also whiffed on a few of their top draft picks. 2015 first-rounder Cornelius Randolph is barely in the conversation at this point. 2016 No. 1 overall pick Mickey Moniak has been extremely disappointing. Kevin Gowdy, that year’s second-rounder, has thrown just nine professional innings as he underwent Tommy John surgery.
All of these factors have combined to produce a bottom-tier farm system. You could argue that the farm is no longer the priority as the team has championship aspirations in the near future. They cashed in their biggest chip to land Realmuto; now they have to see if the bet will pay off.
If this team can’t take the next step, they don’t have much young talent to fall back on.